Thanks everyone for voting for me in the B & E Invitational. I made it through to the second round but unfortunately not to the final. I was pretty pleased with my overall 9th position in the European vote though!
To kick off last weekend we had a gruelling 5 hour journey to Manchester for the Indoor British Champs. When I eventually arrived I was greeted by a perfectly groomed course. The set up provided options to be creative but also to throw some big tricks. The Format of the competition was the same as last year. Each row of features on the hill were ‘zones’ – the competitions would go through 1 zone at a time and each time the field was halved, until the final zone was reached and only a select group of riders remained. In the final there was only supposed to be 4 riders, but the competition was so tight the judges decided to allow more than this through. The Final itself has to be one of the closest finals I have ever ridden in – every single rider threw down! I was more than happy to walk away with 2nd overall, alongside Chris Wadsworth in 3rd and Chris Mccormick in 1st.
The day after the Brits we took a short drive to Kidsgrove ski slope for their opening day, as well as the Oatcake Jam! Despite it being autumn in the UK, it was still pretty hot! After a lot of laughs and some good, classic, sweaty British Dryslope skiing I was so Happy to find out I had ended up in 1st place! Chris Mavin and the folks at Kidsgrove put on an awesome day at a great new venue.
Recently, I had the privilege to go up to London in order to take part in a SportsAid workshop organised by my SportAid supporter – Prudential. The workshop gave me the chance to learn how to be interviewed successfully, how to use social media to raise my profile and also how to tailor my diet to suit my body’s needs as well as the physical requirements of skiing! It was an excellent day!
Last week I headed up north, to Manchester, to compete in the English Champs. After registering we got the opportunity to head out onto the slope, scope out the course and get a few chilled practice runs in. The course was a lot more creative than set-ups here have been in the past, with multiple lines and potential for a lot of creativity, everyone was loving it. This was then followed by a verylong wait while the snowboarders did their qualification runs.
When the time eventually came round I put down two solid runs with some of my better tricks in them and managed to qualify first for finals for the under 18’s.
Finals was the same format as qualifications, two runs, best score counts. I flaked out a little on my first run but managed to put down a solid second run which I was very happy with.
I managed to walk away with a 1st for Under 18’s Male Ski and a 1st Overall! I was over the moon with this result and becoming the English slopestyle champion. My mood was then lifted even further when I looked on the score sheet and found out that one of the three judges had given my run a perfect 100 out of 100!!!
I am so happy with these results and I can’t wait for summer to start!
Recently I headed off with team GB to compete in a few comps and also to get some training in.
The first comp we headed to was the European Open. Held in Laax, it was the first time the previously annual competition had taken place in 2 years! I was so happy to be there. In practice, because of the course having extremely flat landings, everyone was in a bad mindset having not landed a single trick! But, the next day, after a course reshape…it was perfect! Unfortunately I only got one run down as on my second run I went way too big on the first jump and crashed out! I ended up 9th in my heat, qualifying for the semi finals the next day (although we didn’t know that at the time!)
After a seemingly endless train journey through little Italian towns and being interrogated by the police for 15 minutes we arrived in Valmalenco, Italy, for Junior World Championships.
The course was a lot more mellow compared to a lot of the other contests I have been to. With two jumps and three rail sections it suited the way I ski very well. After two full days of practice plus some perfect weather I felt really confident and comfortable with the course and my run. I managed to get 2 solid runs down that I was really pleased with and came 6th place in my heat! Huge well done to Katie Summerhayes for getting 1st and Cal Sandieson for making finals!
After the Junior worlds we all got some quality training time in Mayrhofen setting up for new tricks!
All in all, it was a brilliant 3 weeks and thanks to Pat and the team and all of my sponsors for their support!
It’s been a hectic month or so! In February I headed out to Finland for a spot of urban. With a sick crew and a rented 5-man RV, we spent just over a week shooting and logging shots for Tom Coe’s Uni project/longer cut movie. We had plenty of sites lined up in Helsinki but unfortunately, it was lacking one thing – snow!! So we set off in search of features in Finland but also covered Sweden and as far north as Lapland.
We hit some sick but potentially dangerous features and a good time was had by all despite Webbo dislocating his knee doing possibly the raddest attempt at a trick on an urban feature that I’ve ever witnessed and the fact 9 of us were sleeping in a 5 person RV!
Just three days after getting back I headed off again. This time to Vars for the SFR slopestyle comp! The course, as always, was incredible … and big! Unfortunately, I didn’t have the best of days and only managed to get 10th in my heat! Overall I came 34th out of 78 riders so it was still a good result for me. Overall, I had a brilliant week skiing with friends and getting some tricks down!
Early tomorrow, I’m heading off again for the European Cup in Switzerland, the Junior World Cup in Italy and finally, a couple of weeks’ training in Austria – Watch out for updates!
I’ve had an awesome time in Vars.
This was my second SFR comp this season and I was keen to improve on my results from the first one.
The course was amazing with huge kickers and decent rails. Practice day went well and I was really looking forward to the competition.
Today was comp day – we had to be up the hill pretty early for practice but the course was looking great.
I was really pleased with both of my actual comp runs and managed to get some new tricks into them too.
I was in the adult category with 104 registered riders and there was some pretty serious competition so although I didn’t make it to the final, I was pretty stoked with my 38th placing overall.
Next stop is the Austrian Open!
Last week I headed out to Val Thorens, France to compete in my first international competition. We had three fantastic skiing days with bluebird conditions and a perfect park. In the last couple of days there was loads of snow so I got a few days skiing powder on my awesome K2 Pettitors – the best powder ski I have ever ridden.
The competition was split into three heats and I managed to get 14th out of 28 in my heat. This placed me 44th overall out of 100. I didn’t quite manage to lay down the run I wanted but I am still happy with this result because it was my first competition in the overall mens category against some major competitors!
This summer I am doing a season in Les 2 Alpes! I was lucky enough to get here in time for the 5th annual Kumi Yama Competition!
The theme for this year was ‘Super Mario Brothers’ and the course was covered in Mario props like coins, giant flowers and mushrooms!The set up was amazing and really inventive with a really impressive layout as usual from the awesome park shapers from L2A!
Me and my team mate Alex Hall competed in the amateurs’ competition on the Friday but unfortunately my ski came off in mid-air during a cork 9, even though I landed it it didn’t count as I couldn’t finish my run!
On Sunday, Alex and I also competed in the Kumi-Kids event as team “Banana” and were totally stoked to make it into the final. We laid down a couple of great runs on the rails and were amazed to be announced as the overall winners! We both skied away with the title and a brand new pair of APO powder skis!
The Kumi Yama week was a totally awesome event – it was brilliantly organised and we made a whole bunch of new ski/snowboard buddies from all over the world including people from America (Dean – the Master of Kumi Yami), Estonia (Kelly and Henry Sildaru), Switzerland (Alex Hall), Japan and a few other countries too!
Thanks to the fantastic competition that L2A have put on I have also met my number 1 idol Sammy Carlson and I’m also skiing with him up on the glacier every day this week!
My life is officially complete!
Just got back from two pretty successful weeks in Laxx!
(click on a photo to see it in full!)
I headed out to Laxx a week before all the competitions started on a GB youth training camp to get some practice in on the features! Unfortunately on the first day I badly injured my back! but with alot of neurofen and some massaging from the TENS machine I was able to recover quickly and still got in a very good week of training! Our coaches were the brilliant Neil McGrain, Dave Young and Jamie Cameron! I learnt a few new tricks in the pipe and hit some of the biggest jumps I have ever done in my life with the help from these guys!
We got up to the top of the hill and saw that on the day of the competition the pipe was wrecked! The walls had chunks taken out of them and they were covered in fresh snow. We spent a while side-slipping and shaping the walls to make as easy a ride as possible. Despite the pipe, everyone threw down in the qualifiers. I made the finals, finishing 10th overall and placing 3rd in youth mens!
This year the skiercross course was a lot more dangerous than last year. There were a lot of high speed jumps and sharp corners! The competition started the same way as usual…2 timed runs which then put us into heats but because there was only 6 in my category we went straight into the finals. I qualified for the final in 3rd along with two extremely fast racers and Ethan Prince. The racer who was favourite to win overshot the first jump, losing his skis and crashing out!
The second racer, Ethan and I had to dodge him and his equipment which was scattered everywhere to carry on! At the finish it was extremely close with the racer catching up with me but I just managed to cross the line in 1st place!
Out of all of the disciplines, I was looking forward to slopestyle the most! I had been hitting the biggest jumps on the course all week but when it came to the practice runs in the competition I could only just get enough speed to clear the mediums! In Qualifiers I was extremly dissapointed with my performance and went off the watch the boarders compete in big air and ride the pipe for a bit. I was more than shocked when my dad came over to tell me I had got into the finals. I got back to the course just in time to get one warm up run before my final runs! I was worried to hear that during one of his runs Harris Booth had knuckled and injured himself.
During the finals I put down solid runs and later went to prize giving hoping for a place – I was stunned to hear that I actually got the Gold!! Later that night I found out that I got the highest rail score in the mens overall final and placed 4th overall narrowly missing out on an overall podium!
To be honest, I didnt really hit the big air kicker that much until the day of the competition because I didnt really like it but on the day, the more I hit it the more I loved it! My two qualifying runs went really well! I stomped a 3 tail grab and a cork 7 nose! I was stoked to make it into the finals but narrowly missed out on a podium in my category coming 4th!
A huge thanks to Neil Mcgrain, Dave young and Jamie Cameron for coaching and looking after me, a massive thanks to Becky Hammond for cooking all our meals during the first week!
Thanks to all of my sponsors for supplying me with my gear and helping me to be out there! A special thanks to the Gaskin family for coming to the rescue with new poles at such short notice after I snapped both of my old ones!
Finally, thanks to Stuart and Spencer for putting on such a fantastic week, and congratulations to all of the other medalists!!!
The past month has been amazing! I have been skiing at my best in a while and to my luck this month there has been three comps – the first and second legs of the Southern Freestyle Series and the Oakley Grom Games!
The first of the month saw the first leg of the Southern Series, which was being held at Swadlincote dry slope. The competition was great with a fairly good atmosphere. Everyone was throwing it down, especially Tom Coe and Kiki Patel with his wizard tricks…
At the end of the day I walked away with the 1st under 14’s male title.
Next up was the Oakley Grom Games which, the same as the year before was being held at the Chill Factore. When my family and I got there we signed in and then went off to catch up with people we hadn’t seen in a while. When I finally got out on to the slope I saw how sick the setup was. After skiing for a while I started to get the feel for the flow of the course and from the way everyone one had skied during the jam I didn’t think I was going to get a podium at all (as my category was 12-17) but to my surprise I was called up for 2nd place!!
I then was even more amazed when I found out I was in the finals with James Machon, TJ Harding and Murray Buchan, who had all been skiing really well. It was a sudden death final and in the first round I was drawn against TJ Harding but because of my bad choice of line and his sickness I didn’t beat him. So I then competed against Murray (as he didn’t win against James Machon) to decide the 3rd and 4th places. I corrected my line and beat Murray for 3rd place overall with James Machon in 2nd and TJ Harding in 1st. Pat Sharples put on an amazing games it was totally awesome – can’t wait for next year!
The final comp of the month was the 2nd leg of the Southern Freestyle Series which was at my home slope Chatham. As soon as I got there the atmosphere was already fun and intense and everyone wanted to go up and ski as the setup was really good. Everyone skied really well throughout the day especially Tom Coe, Tom Saunders, Kiki Patel and Ollie Powell.
The finalists were then announced and I was one of them. After a short break, everyone put down their final runs… there was such a high standard. At the end of a fantastic day, it was time for prize giving – I was called up for 1st under 14’s and 2nd overall.
Now all that is left is the final comp at Bracknell. So let’s wait and see what happens.
Last week me, my Mum, my Dad and my sister got up at 4 o’clock in the morning to make a twelve hour journey to Laax in Switzerland for the Brits! On the way there we got lost a couple of times but one of the worst was when we got lost in the roadworks around Zurich. The Sat Nav just kept us going round in circles! Eventually we got there and we were ready to go!
(Click on the photos to get the full picture)
The first event of the week was the half pipe. We got up the mountain for half past nine. I got loads of practice runs. In my first competitive run I threw down some big air out of the pipe with solid, tweaked grabs. I tried to keep the style into it with a big 540 at the end! Unfortunately, I did not land my second run cleanly as I tried back to back 540’s and crashed on the last one…The pipe was running well and there was some stiff competition but I was pleased with my runs and I landed a silver medal!
On the second day, it was time for the slopestyle. The top part of the course was a awesome setup of boxes, rails and gas pipes. The bottom half were three booters! On my first run I landed the top part of the course with loads of technical moves on the boxes like K-feds, Blind switch ups and stalls! I came down to the booters and got a styley 360 with a nose grab but then on the second jump I overcooked it and nearly wiped out! On my second run I landed everything I wanted to! I walked away from the comp with a bronze medal!:)
Day 3 brought the skiercross. A day earlier, on the lift I had a chat with a boarder who was in the GB team for boarder cross. He said that the course was bad at the moment and bits of rock on grass were showing! On the day of the comp they still weren’t covered up which meant a really long wait for the comp to start! Finally it got underway, we only got one run and somehow I managed to miss a gate? Apparently loads of people missed it.
It was time for the final Brits event of the week – the Big Air! I had been hitting the big jump, getting styley threes off of it! So I did a huge, styley three with a nose grab off the big kicker for my first run. On my second and final run I did a 720 off of the middle kicker! I didn’t think I was going to win a medal as Tom Saunders really pulled it out of the bag with his run! In the end I think it all came down to the cleanness of the landings…it was a close one but I just managed to get the bronze medal!
I had a brilliant time competing in the Brits this year – as the youngest in my age category I really wasn’t expecting to land any medals, so to come away with three medals out of the four competitions was absolutely amazing!! I even won a light sabre for showing off my moves on the rails in the Stair Wars event!
I had tons of fun messing about and having fun at the freestyle academy.
I also want to say thank you to all of my sponsors for your support and gear (Adidas eyewear, Ski Bartlett, K2 Skis, Kent Reliance Building Society and Waterbird ) and a big up to Pat Sharples for giving me a few pointers throughout the week to help me achieve my goals!
We’ve had about 2 foot of snow in Walderslade in the past week – shame to waste it so I built myself a slopestyle course on the front drive! I had a bit of a problem getting speed up as there is a definite lack of mountains in our close but I solved that one by using the garden slide.
I managed to lay down a few steezy runs – check out my video here
Had an amazing time at the Castleford Slopestyle this weekend – we travelled up early on Saturday and arrived in plenty of time for a sausage sandwich before hitting the slope for a practice.
In the jam session I got a good feel for the rides and was stoked to win a spot prize.
In the actual comp I was first to ride in my age category (12-16) – I laid down a solid first run, my second was better and turned out to be my best as my third run didn’t quite go to plan.
Results
There were a lot of great skiers in the comp, including all the local Castleford crew so I was amazed when my name was called out to take the bronze prize in the 12-16’s category – Woooooohoooo!!! Harris Booth claimed silver, and my ski buddy Tyler Jay Harding got the well deserved gold.
Just got back from a brilliant weekend in Norfolk where I had a fantastic time seeing all my ski mates while competing in the mini-Brits!
On the Saturday we arrived early enough to search out the local Sainsbury’s for a good breakfast to set us up for the day. When we got to the slope we were stoked to see a good turn out and a challenging set-up for the slopestyle.
we kicked off with a rail jam – I got to work straight away, getting the feel of the slope and tried out as many tricks as I could. At the end of the session Pat announced that I was the winner of the Jam for the Youth Mens section. I was stoked with that!
Slopestyle
After the rail jam we began the slopestyle competition where we got three runs each – my earlier practice during the jam session paid off and I laid down some steezy tricks with my best run including a K-fed on the top gas pipe followed by a switch-up, pretzel 270-off on the box rail and then finishing off on the down-up-down with a slide followed by a 450 off.
Slopestyle Results
At the end of the day we had the awards and I was announced as the winner of the Youth Mens Slopestyle which was fantastic for me as I was up against 14 of the top guys in the country. TJ Harding came a close second with my Southern freestyle squad team mate Tom Saunders coming third.
After the rest of the awards were announced they moved on to the overall positions for the day and when they called out the results I was stoked to hear that I had been placed 2nd overall in the mens Slopestyle across all age groups – 52 competitors including most of my heroes. Local legend Tom Coe secured the top spot with an awesome run while Chris Wadsworth came third.
Big Air
There was an entertaining quiz night where some of the adults took may be a little too much advantage of the local hospitality but the Chatham Chavs did well to finish second against some stiff opposition.
We got to the slope early on Sunday and started with a practice session for the Big Air. My best run in the comp was a cork 720 which Pat said I had put my own style to, but I very nearly landed a cork 9 in my final run.
When the results were announced I was mega-happy to find that I’d come 4th in my age category against 14 other competitors and 12th overall in a field of 45!! Super-stoked!
SkierCross
SkierCross was a total riot! I put down a respectable time of 16:56 seconds in the timed heats which put me 6th in the heats – not bad for a freestyler! I got through the quarter finals, despite having to run the race twice! I finally got knocked out in the semi-finals after a very tight battle that saw me cross the line holding three ski-poles – what a fight!!
Special thanks to my sponsors Waterbird for continuing to support me with my skiing and to Ski Bartlett and K2 for supplying my skis.
This weekend we went to the final event of the Southern Freestyle Jam Series at Warmwell in Dorset.
We arrived nice and early and got straight out onto the slope. Warmwell is amazing – a small but fun slope with built-in kickers in a fantastic surrounding and the park staff were all really friendly.
We had an hour to warm up – the built in kicker was really nice and the rails were totally smooth although the SnowFlex was running pretty slow in the heat.
The Comp
As soon as the comp started, I got straight to work stomping 7’s on the kicker – landing them every time. Hitting the street-rail was fun – getting 4’s off.
My skis were pretty sticky in the heat so lots of thanks to Chris and Sally at Ski-Bartlett for “lubeing” me up with a huge bottle of lube!!
We had a brilliant fun session with the skiers trying to land the longest airs, while the boarders had a high-ollie comp – man those guys can jump!
At the end of the comp I was stoked to hear my name called – making it into the final 6 against some of the big guns!
The Final
In the final, I put down two solid runs on the big kicker – landing two solid 7’s with a slight cork. I followed this with two runs down the rails – landing a 4 off on the first run, and narrowly missing a 6 on my second.
The Results
Then it was time to announce the results…
I was made-up to be announced as the winner of the day in the under-14’s category but was blown away to hear that I had also come second across all age categories for the day.
I still can’t believe I beat some of the the big boys!!!
Finally, I was announced as the overall winner of the under-14’s category for the entire series – winning a trophy, a camera and a host of goodies.
Well done to my ski buddies Tom Saunders and James Colclough for coming second and third in the series.
Oh – and my sister Madison also came first in the female under-14’s category on the day and for the entire series… we’ve got matching trophies on the mantle-piece at home now!
The only downer on the day was England’s performance in the World Cup – couldn’t even beat the Yanks!!
Big Up’s
Big up to John, Darren, Paul and Dave for organising such an awesome event… can’t wait for next year’s – I believe we’re going national!!!
Big up to Chris and Sally at Ski-Bartlett for the lube!
And finally, thanks to Vince and Ally for their continued support!
Cheers,
MJ.
Off to Castleford for the Summer Railbattle tomorrow
Check it out here!
http://www.railbattle.co.uk/index.html